Denny Hamlin claims Brickyard pole

Denny Hamlin has stormed to pole position for the Crown Royal presents the Curtiss Shaver 400 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The 27th driver to make a qualifying run, Hamlin put down a lap no one could touch, touring the vaunted Brickyard in 49.244 seconds to collect his first Coors Light pole award at Indy, his second of the season and the 11th of his career.

“I think, if you put me out front on the last run, no one’s going to get around me,” Hamlin said.

“So it’s all going to be about maintaining track position and maintaining the balance of your race car. I’ve been good here before and not been able to pass.

“There’s always been about two cars, in every single race here, that’s been capable of passing. Everyone else just kind of runs where they’re at. All you can do is hope that you’ve got a fast enough car to be one of those two, where, if you do get set back, you can be one of the cars that can get back to the front.

“One thing about it is having the No. 1 pit stall now. That’s going to be an advantage on pit road. I think it’s hard to point to the outfield right now, but we’ve got the bat halfway raised.”

Australia’s Marcos Ambrose will have some work ahead of him starting from 23rd.

“That wasn’t the qualifying lap we were looking for,” said Ambrose.

“We caught a cloud for part of our run and our DEWALT Ford was really tight. We’ll work on the car during the race tomorrow and hopefully end up with a good finish at the end of the day.”